


It's a Bearable Bruise on Your Conscious

by Kaylortigger



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alexis | Quackity Deserves Better, Alexis | Quackity Needs a Hug, Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, Boys In Love, Car Accidents, Hurt Clay | Dream (Video Blogging RPF), Hurt Eret, Hurt GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF), Hurt Karl Jacobs, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt Quackity, Hurt Wilbur Soot, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Kinda, Lack of Communication, Lots Of Sad, M/M, Multiple Pronouns for Eret (Video Blogging RPF), Nightmares, Runaway, Sad, Some comfort, Trans Technoblade (Video Blogging RPF), again kinda, bad communication skills, briefly mentioned, everyones worried, feelings are hard ok?, hurt sapnap, if rapunzel hit them in the face with her fryingpan, karl needs a long hug, kinda a, might be a happy ending, might not be, not a lot, really hurt, these boys are dumb, these boys wouldn't know theyre in love, theyre all a mess
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-20
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-13 19:49:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28783710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaylortigger/pseuds/Kaylortigger
Summary: "I'm scared."..."Karl-""I love you."He didn't hear a response. Because he felt the vibrations of his phone shutting down.It died....Or.. the really unnecessary karlnap fic that came to me at like midnight.The title and chapter titles are from the song "Mr. Rattlebones" by Matt Maeson.
Relationships: Alexis | Quackity & Karl Jacobs, Clay | Dream/GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF), Karl Jacobs/Sapnap, basically platonic friendship between every character mentioned
Comments: 2
Kudos: 28





	It's a Bearable Bruise on Your Conscious

**Author's Note:**

> I'm making 5-fuck5immakingit6dealwithit-chapters my maximum for this story bc i tend to go way to far then the writing turns to crap so...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Keep your eyes on me Karl. Everything will be alright. Look at me.” Nick kept repeating those lines, over and over again like a recording. Then his voice faded. It felt like Karl was being pulled backwards, into blackness, hovering.   
> “I don’t like this.” He muttered to no one. Nick walked up to him, and put his hand on his chest, pushing him. “Nick?”  
> “Don’t try to talk. It’s supposed to be this way. It’s easier.”  
> “What’s easier?”  
> “Don’t talk.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this isn't very good, but the idea and stuff. I hate it here...

His nightmares have been getting worse. It's the same thing over and over again. The hands would grab him and pull him down. It was like he was falling in slow motion, then it would speed up when the hands grabbed him. It would be fore a few seconds before time slowed again and he tried struggling. A hand always covered his mouth when he started screaming, almost cutting off his air. This was why he didn’t know if he wanted to go to the hotel where he was meeting with Nick, Clay and the three who transferred from the UK. 

“Karl you have to!” Alex pleaded with him again. “I know how much you miss Nick… and how much you like him-”

“I don’t-”

“Good luck telling yourself that.”

“I’ll go if you come.”

“Dude…”

“I’m sure they’ll be fine with it if I ask!”

“Fine. If that’s what's gonna make you go see your friends-”

“Alex.”

“What? I’m sorry. Look, you don’t have to meet your friends if you don’t want to I get that, but it’s only gonna get worse because if you don’t go you’re gonna regret it and end up pouting to me about it and, frankly, I don’t wanna hear it.”

“Did I ever tell you how much I hate you?”

“Only when I’m right.”

Karl rolled his eyes. “I hate you,” he mumbled.

“Sure.”

“Get out. I have a call planned with the others.” 

Alex playfully rolled his eyes and walked out of Karl’s room. 

A few minutes later, everyone started getting onto the discord call. They started on random subjects until Clay brought up the subject of the meet up.

“Hey, Karl? You decide on whether or not you’re coming?” Nick asked.

“I was wondering if Alex could come? I have-” Karl sighed. “I have bad nightmares sometimes and he knows how to calm me down. Y’know?”

“Oh yeah! Of course he can!” Clay piped in.

He heard Nick mumbled something, but couldn’t catch what it was.

“Hey, Wil?” George said after a moment of silence.

“Yes?”

“How’re the siblings? Haven’t heard from them in a while.”

“Oh.” Wilbur paused, not expecting the question. “Y’know… Tech’s being himself. Finally got the top surgery. It took dadza a while to save up for it, with how expensive it is. Tommy had his first kiss, finally. The boy’s 16, should’ve happened a while ago, but at least it was hilarious. So-” Wilbur started telling the story of how Techno pushed Tommy into the girl he liked, making her drop her things, Tommy helping her, and how it went on from there. Alastair cutting in at random parts because he was there, apparently. Karl smiled at the story. Then he started thinking.

_ “The boy’s 16, should’ve happened a while ago-” _

Karl’s almost 22 and he still hasn't had his first kiss yet. He almost had his first kiss with Alex, just to see how it would… he didn’t know… feel? It almost happened, then Karl backed off, muttering apologies for even bringing it up. And that was it.

“Karl!” the shout was right in his ear.

“Hey! What the honk!”

“You zoned out.” Nick said. “We were all telling stories about our first kisses because that’s who we are. So. Your turn!” Karl swore he could  _ hear _ the smile in Nick’s voice.

“I- uhh- actually haven’t had my first kiss yet… Alex and I almost kissed once, but I backed off.” A chorus of “what why?”s echoed through his ears. Followed by a “that’s kind of rude” from Clay’s sister. “It wasn’t rude! I’m the one who asked him to kiss me, then I just… I don’t know… changed my mind.”

“Can I be your first kiss?-” Nick whispered. The call was silent after that. “Shit-” Then he left the call.

“So I’m not the only one who heard him?” Alastair said slowly.

“Apparently not.” Wilbur responded.

“Is he okay?”

“Probably embarrassed, if anything.” Clay muttered. “Are you okay Karl? Haven’t heard you breathe in, like, forever.”

“Yeah… yeah…” He let out a shaky breath. “I’m fine.” Karl was just trying to process what Nick said. Did he mean that? He couldn’t have. “I think- I think I’m gonna- gonna go. Sorry.” He logged off before he could hear any response. 

His phone buzzed a few moments later.

_Nickynap-_ _Hey… sorry if what i said in the call was crossing any lines. I don’t know why I freaked out so much. It didn’t mean anything. Sorry._

_ Karl- Oh no you’re good dude. I just didn’t expect it. _

_ Nickynap- Ok! I’ll see you at the meet? _

_ Karl- Yeah ofc. Wouldn’t miss it. :) _

_ Nickynap- Hell yeah. Ttyl man. _

_ Karl- Ttyl. _

Karl stared at Nick’s first message for a while. Of course it didn’t mean anything. Why would he think that it meant anything in the first place. Nick was flirty with all their friends, even with Dream and George, who Karl was pretty sure were dating each other. Karl placed his phone face down on his desk, checking the time on the desktop in front of him. He sighed when it said it was only a quarter ‘til 7. 

The meet up was in a few days. They were going to take Alex’s car. Karl hated driving long periods of time without stop. They were meeting up in Madison, Tennessee. Apparently it was about a nine hour drive for everyone, just from different directions. He already regretted agreeing to go. It’s going to make getting over Nick a lot more difficult than he wanted it to be. 

The days leading up to the meet up were torture. They were painfully long and uneventful. Karl was just dragging himself around, stressing out about meeting his friends he only knew online. He packed over the days, regretting doing it even though he agreed to it. He wanted to go, but his nerves, and his thoughts were just running wild.

_ "What if I don't live up to their expectations? They won't like me. Why did I agree to this?" _

"Karl, man, we gotta go."

"Right, right, sorry. Coming."

...

The drive was quiet for a long time. Alex focusing on the drive, Karl staring out his window, watching everything, getting lost in his self-deprecation thoughts. They stopped a few times, never switching drivers no matter how much Karl said he was fine to drive. He didn't like how Alex was trying to make him seem like a child, as much as he already did that to himself.  He still didn’t like his friends basically babying him. He wasn’t even the youngest in the group. Nick was. And they treated him as an actual adult. Then Clay, just turned old enough to drink. Karl and Alastair were the same age, 22, George is 23, Wil’s 24, and he was the only one treated like a child. Tommy, Wil’s 16 year old brother, was treated more as an adult than he was. Alex was also 19. It had no releventivity, since he wasn’t technically part of the group, but it was utter bullshit that Karl was treated as though he was like, 5.

He closed his eyes a few hours in the drive. It started out nice, the dream started nice. It certainly didn’t end that way.

He was just with Nick, and the others, then everything started dissolving. It was just him and Nick standing, more like suspended, over a white abis. It hurt his eyes to look at.

“Keep your eyes on me Karl. Everything will be alright. Look at me.” Nick kept repeating those lines, over and over again like a recording. Then his voice faded. It felt like Karl was being pulled backwards, into blackness, hovering. 

“I don’t like this.” He muttered to no one. Nick walked up to him, and put his hand on his chest, pushing him. “Nick?”

“Don’t try to talk. It’s supposed to be this way. It’s easier.”

“What’s easier?”

“Don’t talk.”

Nick pushed him backwards, until he tripped over seemingly nothing.

And he started falling.

And it felt all too familiar. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i cant write dream sequences btw so *screams in lowercase*  
> not very good but i hope you guys like it! ill be adding onto my other story soon hopefully!  
> kudos and comments mean a lot and im hoping to add fics in other fandoms im in soon  
> thats all  
> -briar


End file.
